


Still Beating

by Naomida



Series: Fire Meet Gasoline [16]
Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Piracy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:34:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22776469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naomida/pseuds/Naomida
Summary: It shouldn’t have felt good in the slightest, to be told that she was now part of a worgen-lead pirate crew so far from home, but somehow it did raise her mood and she went to sleep that night feeling better than she had in a few weeks.
Relationships: Lidya Appleton & Ravandwyr
Series: Fire Meet Gasoline [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/655244
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6





	Still Beating

She could feel every ley line ever. Could feel them softly pulsating, calling out to her like the heady song of a siren. There was something cold about them, something that stirred the ice in her veins, something that made her ache for some breeze on her face and in her hair.

She could also feel the fel, heavy, sticky, everywhere and terrible. It was growing, slowly sipping in, making everything sick.

Killing.

_Fight it, Lidya!_

The Light was warm, like the summer sun in Redridge shining down on her face as she closed her eyes and relaxed by the lake. The Light was inside her, and all around, and she had already been in It, once, after dying. She knew the Light was where the people she loved the most were waiting for her. It was comforting.

The Light was reaching out to her again.

It would be easy to let go and let it take her in Its comforting arms, gently pushing her away from her problems.

It would be so easy.

_Lidya! Please!_

The ley lines were too cold though, it was taking some of the Light’s warmth away, and all that fel… it slowly started morphing into something else, something darker, heavier, something that was ready to pounce on her, plant its claws in her flesh and never let go.

She stopped breathing.

It pounced and she felt the Light bite back, but immediately retreat when the thing defended itself, leaving her alone, and cold.

It couldn’t end like that. The Light _had_ to be with her for things to end, she couldn’t spend her last moments alone in the dark feeling lost and cold.

So cold.

The thing didn’t care though, it simply bit harder, until it was too much for her and she had to let go.

The cold was something she knew well though, so she turned her focus to the pulsating ley lines and their cold, refreshing energy. She could feel it matching the beats of her heart, and she frowned as she turned her internal temperature down, and the lines mirrored it.

_Yes, use it Lidya. This is it._

She knew she could go colder – could turn her blood and skin to ice, could freeze an entire village up for a few hours, could stop a small army with just a frozen orb – and the lines fed into it, started pulsating harder, as she got colder and the thing attacking winced back.

She wished the Light would come back, but it wasn’t her path, it was Léria’s – and as she thought about her sister it suddenly all came back to her as she took a deep and sudden breath in, opening her eyes as the voice she had faintly heard until now was screaming her name.

Lidya was laying on the floor of the mage tower in Zangarra, shaking violently as Khadgar cradled her close, his fingers running though her hair.

“Shhhh,” he murmured, pressing her against his chest where she could hear his heart beating, fast but steady. “You did it Lidya, you overcame it. You’re gonna be fine.”

She tried to reply, but she was shaking too much and buried her face against his shoulder instead.

  
  


  
  


***

  
  


  
  


Everything felt different, like the entire world had moved just one centimeter to the right, and now Lidya couldn’t feel her center of gravity anymore. The air, the rustling of the leaves, the gentle rain falling down on the Broken Isle, the way everything and everyone was moving, even the Heart of Azeroth – everything was new despite being so familiar.

It had taken her two entire days to get herself back on her feet, after the whole ritual. She couldn’t even begin to imagine how Khadgar had done it all alone – but then he had been training for years for that, so maybe it had helped.

She had barely finished her Kirin Tor training – and here she was now.

She looked around, at the Chambers of the Guardian, a smile pulling at her lips despite herself. Every single one of her problems were still here, she had barely slept when it had been her only goal, and yet she felt better now. Not exactly hopeful, but like maybe she could manage.

Maybe it was just the rush of power.

It didn’t matter anyway, because it was done, and she still had her husband to find and her world to save.

She had no idea how to do it though.

“Meryl!” she called, but it’s Vargoth who came down the stairs to meet her, looking surprised.

“Lidya?” he asked, a question in his eyes.

She gave him a shy smile. He was one of the best Archmage of this world, she didn’t need to tell him what had happened for him to feel it — and Khadgar had said that it would take her a few more days to get the hang of it and not broadcast so much power around her — but she couldn’t tell from his face what he thought of it.

“Well,” he breather out, smiling frankly. His left hand was shaking, but not too badly, and his blue eyes were clear, so she knew he was in full control. “Congratulations are in order.”

“It was out of despair.”

“I know,” he replied, coming up to her and gently squeezing her shoulder, which made her feel way better, “but I know you are capable of shouldering this title and everything that comes with it — you’ve been acting as the Guardian for a while now anyway.”

“I know, but acting as one and having all this power…”

“If someone can do it, it’s you.”

She nodded, knowing deep down that she shouldn’t rely so much on other people’s opinion but unable to stop herself.

Vargoth meant a lot to her — he had survived so much and had acted as a mentor whenever she had needed one, so his seal of approval was the best she could get right now.

(She doubted Draerin would smile and congratulate her.

She doubted she would see him anytime soon.)

“We need to work now though,” she said, because they didn’t have any more time to lose.

“I know, Ravandwyr told me everything. He’s investigating some azerite fractures on Kalimdor as we speak. He should be back this evening.”

“Good, what about the others?”

“Modera left for Tiragarde. She was called by King Greymane, but I don’t know more. The Kirin Tor couldn’t decide on whether to get into the war or not.”

“Who voted yes?” she asked, but she already knew. Vargoth and Khadgar didn’t want this, and she had seen Modera and Ansirem from afar in the battle for Lordaeron. She didn’t think Kalec would want this, but she also didn’t know how Karlain would vote.

It was the problem, with a Council made up of five humans, half of which had grown up in Lordaeron.

Vargoth could only smile sadly at her.

“No matter,” she said, resolve taking over. “Whoever is willing to fight for the Tirisgarde again is welcomed, but we need to make sure everyone knows that Azeroth is the only thing we are fighting for. I don’t care about races, I just need people who are willing to do what’s needed for our survival.”

“I have some candidates.”

“Perfect. Let’s meet up in my office when Ravandwyr comes back, we’ll draw a plan of attack and start working on some strategies.”

Since Vargoth nodded she turned on her heels and started walking toward the teleportation orb to her office, determined to go to sleep for real this time, but the Archmage stopped her by gently touching her arm.

“This is not really my place,” he said, looking sad all of the sudden, “but I’ve been the missing husband before, and I know this can’t be easy for you, when everything is happening at the same time, but no matter what, I’m here to help you with this quest too.”

Lidya swallowed, throat suddenly tight, and nodded.

“Thank you.”

Vargoth smiled, squeezed her shoulder one more time, and let her go.

  
  


  
  


***

  
  


  
  


The only thing Lidya, Vargoth and Ravandwyr could agree on was that she needed to get to Tiragarde and get intel. They couldn’t agree on a way for that, but Lidya had insisted on her idea and Vargoth had agreed, though he had pushed for some changes, and Ravandwyr had been forced to accept it.

That was how Lidya found herself inside of a mine, West of Tiragarde, a pickaxe in hands, pretending to mine azerite. The clothes she had ‘’borrowed’’ from a miner were too big and making it hard to move around without having the pants and the shoes try to get away, but so far no one had paid any attention to her, and it was actually a great way to charge the Heart of Azeroth.

She couldn’t do that all day long though and needed to find a way to stop this whole operation.

She didn’t know much about the Ashvane Trading Company, except that they were more pirates than an actual legitimate business, they had a _lot_ of azerite weapons and, from what she could tell, were mining it faster and faster to produce even more.

Her two main goals were to steal as much azerite as she could to stabilize Azeroth, and to find as many of their weapons as she could get her hands on to destroy them.

So far it was going fine. She had made friends with two other miners at lunch and they had shared not only the pitiful bread they had been given, but also some gossip.

Lady Priscilla Ashvane was very close to power and rumor had it that she was about to be named Admiral General. Lidya didn’t really care that much, although it had seemed weird, and she knew that she couldn’t let someone making so many weapons get anymore powerful than they already were.

A week before, she would have felt bad about meddling in other’s affairs like that. Now though, she was the Guardian and every business was hers, as long as it concerned the well being of Azeroth and everyone calling it a home.

The overseer of the mine finished his hourly round around the mine by checking on Lidya — who pretended to pay him no attention and to be totally focused on the lode she was trying to mine, which she didn’t have to fake struggling with. He nodded, satisfied, and turned his back to her.

That’s when she attacked.

It wasn’t great to get someone like that but she had more important matters than to worry about being unfair to her enemies.

Like she had known she would, she found a map of all azerite mines of the Company’s around the continent, along with where some of the caches of weapons were, and a handful of letters signed by Lady Ashvane herself.

Lidya was squating down behind her lode of azerite, trying to read the letters in the low light of the mine, when a small explosion made her jump and look up.

There was no other sound, but she knew there never was between the first attack and the second.

She quickly teleported all the papers she had found to her office, got up and decided to go see what the explosion was about.

The first thing she saw was a worgen in Alliance armor scratching a miner’s eyes out. She blinked, not knowing what to do for a moment, and realized what was happening when one of her ‘’colleague’’ bumped into her, screamed in terror, and started running away.

He was stopped by a battlemage freezing him on the spot and fell pathetically the second the ice was hard around his feet.

 _Good technic_ Lidya couldn’t help but think, before she was looking around. The mage was hiding near a tree, freezing everything in sight. There was another soldier a few feet behind her, protecting her, and a third soldier was going around the frozen prisoners, checking if they were still alive and putting chains around their wrists.

“By order of his Majesty King Greymane, you are all under arrest!” screamed the first soldier, the only one in his worgen form, blood dripping from his claws onto the grassy ground.

 _Well_ , thought Lidya, slowly backing up into the mine. She couldn’t be made prisoner, at least not by the Alliance. One look at her face and Greymane would recognize her. In fact, she was pretty sure he could find her by scent alone, but she preferred not to think about that. She went back in her hiding spot behind the lode, not knowing what to do. If she left now and everyone died or got arrested it wouldn’t be too bad for her — although it could mean all the intel she had just gained would very quickly become obsolete. If she left and the miners somehow survived, then she would have just lost her best opportunity at knowing all the secrets of the Company.

There was a new explosion outside, and a loud scream that sounded like it was made by a half-wolf person. There were more explosions immediately following the scream, and she knew the reinforcement had arrived.

She couldn’t join the fight, not without breaking her cover of being just an innocent miner out there for the paycheck, but it felt too weird to just wait in her hiding spot, so after a moment she slowly got her and started walking out of the mine again.

“Well,” greeted her a tall and large man wearing the Ashvane’s colors, “what have you been doing all this time? We have pushed them back, go back to work.”

She hesitated, and as she looked up into the man pale green eyes, she suddenly remembered that she hadn’t hidden the body of the overseer.

 _Fuck_ , she thought, just as there was a scream of surprise coming from inside the mine.

She really needed to sleep more and stop making rookie mistakes.

  
  


  
  


***

  
  


  
  


She was ‘’judged’’ for treason about three hours later. Three men armed to the teeth with azerite weapons took her to a small house in Freehold, where she stood in front of one skinny old man, a frowning woman and one bald person with an eyepatch, who all simply whispered furiously between each other for a few minutes.

“Well,” said the woman when they were done, turning her attention to Lidya and raising an eyebrow at her. “It has been decided then. You’ll spend five months in Tol Dagor. Next time you want a promotion, just talk to your superior.”

Lidya was a little stunned, so she let the three guards push her out of the door as someone else was walked into the house.

They didn’t stop until she was put on a big boat, in a small cage, and told that they would leave at daybreak the next morning.

She was pretty sure she could have left at any moment, but was curious to see who would be in the prison — surely the enemies of her enemies could give her something interesting.

  
  


  
  


***

  
  


  
  


Lidya was pretty sure no one had realized that she was an Archmage, but the cell they put her in had enchantments against magic and drained all her mana in about fifteen minutes.

It was fine though. She had three days until Ravandwyr was coming to get her — it had been one of the condition for him to let her do this — and she knew the high elf would leave no stone unturned. He had taken everything that had happened pretty hard, for reasons she could easily guess, and he had told her in these exact words that he would kill anyone before he let people hurt her.

It had touched her, more than he could have imagined, and that was now keeping her from worrying too much.

Still though, staying all alone in her tiny cell wouldn’t help, so she got up, and walked to the bars keeping her from freedom.

There were no guards around, and from here she could see the inside of the cells on the other side of the floor. In all of them were people wearing some sort of Ashvane uniform, or pirate clothes. It wasn’t exactly surprising.

What surprised her though was the voice that came from the cell to her left.

“So... I heard you killed your boss. _With magic_.”

So maybe they knew she was a mage.

She couldn’t see anything, but the voice was low, and had an edge to it. It belonged to someone dangerous – and it really was just her luck.

“Who told you that?” she asked, sitting down on the floor, the bars to her left and the direction the voice was coming from to her back.

“I have eyes and ears everywhere.”

“Yet you’re here.”

The man talking snickered. “Yeah, why not? We get warm meals and I get to boss everyone around.”

“Except your brother...” muttered someone two cells over, and the person Lidya was talking to barked a laugh.

“No one gets to boss my brother around. That’s why we like him. And once we all get out of here, he’ll get us our ship back, and with it, everything else we might want.”

So, pirates.

“That’s nice,” replied Lidya, already knowing where this was going.

“Fuck yes it is, and you know what? We could use some ambitious mage when we’re out there at sea. Nothing screams success like murder and riches.”

Lidya couldn’t help a chuckle at that. She was married to the most powerful man in the Alliance, and was technically the most powerful mage on Azeroth now. She was pretty sure it she would be considered successful already, but the thought of pirating was nice.

“I’ve just arrived. I might need a few days to think it through.”

“Yeah?” asked her interlocutor, “And what if you don’t have a few days?”

“What do you mean?”

“Let’s just say that your timing is pretty great, rookie.”

She frowned and got up, but she knew what he was talking about before he even finished his sentence, because suddenly someone was walking down the hallway in front of her cell, and she held her breath as the warrior didn’t pay her any attention, fighting off a bunch of pirates that had just come from the other side of the hallway.

“Boys!” screamed the man she had been talking to, “Time to see what you’re worth!”

There was a roar, and the walls started shaking as every single person on the floor, except for Lidya, started attacking the bars keeping them in.

It was a shitty strategy to get out, but it worked for some of them, who immediately started running to the warrior – who, of course, had just been joined by a druid Lidya knew well, a priest and a mage.

All Alliance, of course. Because it seemed they were everywhere.

“You’ll see,” said the man from the next cell, his voice even darker than before, a low chuckle coming from his throat. “Once we’re out, nothing will stop us. We have a plan, a very good one, and this is your only chance. Come or die.”

She was pretty sure she had other options, but she couldn’t risk it, not when Cary and Barrin, a mage she had personally recruited in the Tirisgarde, were standing only a few meters away.

 _Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck_ , she needed to do something and get out of there.

_Why the fuck were they even here, in the prison?_

_At the_ exact  _time she was?_

“Fine,” she said, “let’s go after murder and riches. Sounds like a lot of fun.”

The man laughed loudly, but Lidya was too focused on the fights going on outside to really pay much attention to him.

Some guards had joined in, but everyone was fighting against everyone, and it wasn’t hard for the Alliance party to just cut through wardens and prisoners when both groups were under-armed and wildly disorganized.

It was only when the warrior charged at a big worgen that Lidya even realized he was there, and she watched the ensuing fight closely.

The worgen was good, maybe a little _too good_ , and she couldn’t let him win.

No matter what her feelings for the Alliance at large were, she had two friends in this party, and she knew it would be too big of a loss for the world to lose them.

Fortunately for her, despite his talents the worgen wasn’t good enough to take on five opponents all at once, and he seemed to realized it because after a long and hard fight he just threw some smoke powder down, and disappeared into the cloud.

“Yes! Show them!” yelled the man Lidya had been talking to, and she waited impatiently as the smoke filled the whole floor and victorious roars echoed around.

She was expecting it, when the worgen came up to her cell and simply teared out some bars to make a hole big enough for her to get out. He smirked, and Lidya simply gave him a nod, stepping out and feeling dizzy for a second as her power rushed through her body again. She didn’t have enough mana to fight, but she could fire up a teleportation spell with no problem.

The question now was just where to go, and when to leave, because as she watched the worgen open the next cell and the man – or, as she discovered, worgen – she had been talking to stepped out, the smoke disappeared and she barely had time to duck back in her cell before the warrior was charging again at the first worgen.

“Come on boys!” he screamed as everyone he had just freed jumped in the fray.

“Let’s do this brother!” yelled the worgen who had tried to recruit Lidya, and she simply watched as the two of them started fighting.

They were  _really_ good, she could see why they would end up in this prison – although she had no idea how anyone had managed to catch them because they were both extremely strong and fast when they moved.

Unfortunately, they could rival with five of Alliance’s best, and as the fight went on they slowly lost their advantage, most of the freed prisoner falling, dead, and the two worgen brothers being incapable of rivaling with an Archdruid and a mage.

“No!” yelled the one she had talked to as his brother fell down under one particularly well-done fireball – Lidya couldn’t help but feel proud, because she had been the one to teach Barrin to do that. He looked up with panic, and met Lidya’s eyes.

Everyone in the group except for the warrior, who had raised his sword, turned to look at them, looking surprised.

“Lidya?” asked Cary.

“Archmage?” asked Barrin.

“Success!” thundered the worgen.

“What?” said the priest.

“Fuck,” replied Lidya, panicking, and without thinking she raised her hand, and teleported away – bringing two unplanned and unsuspecting friends along with her.

  
  


  
  


***

  
  


  
  


The worgen who had recruited her was named Bobby. His brother was Jes, and on the verge of dying, and extremely lucky that Lidya had read a botanical encyclopedia once in her life and knew how to use Riverbud to make some kind of healing tincture.

Bobby thanked her, and Jes simply grumbled before saying that he could have taken them all out easily if only he had been fighting with his favorite and lucky daggers, before declaring that they needed to go to Freehold to get their ship back from “those motherfucking bastards that will pay very dearly for what they did, I made this promise to them and I intend on keeping my words”. Lidya... well, she didn’t really have anything else to do, and this was a chance to get into the Tiragarde pirating world she had never hoped for. Something was telling her that this was a chance she should take, so she agreed to going with them and pretended to help Bobby hold up his brother who couldn’t exactly walk at the moment.

She hadn’t had enough mana to teleport them very far, but at least they were back on the continent and not on the tiny island that had housed the prison.

“Hey look,” whispered Bobby a few hours later, after Lidya had found some water to drink and made a small fire for Jes to sleep next to, “I know he won’t ever said it, but thanks for saving my brother’s life. We were lucky you were here.”

“I don’t know about that,” she replied.

“Yeah... those guys, were they here for you?”

Lidya couldn’t answer that question for sure, but she doubted it, so she shrugged a shoulder.

“They knew you, right? They called you by your name.”

“I know two of them. I don’t know why they were here though.”

“I doesn’t matter anyway, because now you’re part of the Howlis. Understood?”

She smiled slightly, and nodded. “Understood.”

It shouldn’t have felt good in the slightest, to be told that she was now part of a worgen-lead pirate crew so far from home, but somehow it did raise her mood and she went to sleep that night feeling better than she had in a few weeks.

  
  


  
  


***

  
  


  
  


Three days later, and Lidya was sauntering down a street in Freehold. The Howlis brothers couldn’t be seen in the city, there was a price put on their head, but Lidya was new blood and no one knew her, or even cared about her. It felt good, to not have to worry about anyone recognizing her and going for her neck, but she also didn’t let herself relax. Everyone was an enemy here, and no one would hesitate to try to get rid of her if they thought that she was becoming too much of a nuisance.

She had invoked Vargoth’s image to tell him – and Ravandwyr – everything that had happened, and while both were unhappy about the change of plan, they did agree that it was a good opportunity to see how the pirating world was doing in this war, and it gave them a way to stay up to date about what was happening out at sea.

“Barrin came to see me,” had said Vargoth. His eyes were twitching and he had seemed on the verge of losing himself, and Lidya had almost choked on how much it hurt her to see him like this. “He said he wants to join us and didn’t know that you were even fighting. He showed me some papers. There are a lot of orders going around about your capture. The SI:7 doesn’t seem like it will forget about you for even a second.”

“We can’t be sure that he isn’t working for them, not this early, so try to get as much intel out of him as possible, and make sure everything he tells us is true. We’ll see if he can earn himself a chance at fighting the good fight.”

Vargoth had tried to smile, but it had looked too desperate and flat at the same time to really land, and Lidya had put an end to the conversation right there and then.

It wasn’t easy, to suddenly become a pirate.

Thankfully, she had recently defeated the entire Legion, so it still wasn’t too much of an obstacle.

“What about my boat?” asked the pirate she was walking with. He was a tall and large man – like the Kul Tirans often were.

“Where did you get it?”

He squinted at her. His hand disappeared in his pocket.

Lidya smirked internally.

“Why are you asking?”

“I just think it’s a nice boat.”

His hand surged from his pocket and went straight for the junction of her shoulder and her neck, but the dagger that had been clutched between his fingers was already in Lidya’s own hand, arcane magic surrounding them in an invisibility spell as she pressed the blade against the man’s throat.

“Well,” she smiled, pushing him back until he was against a wall, “this is awkward.”

The man was looking at her with scared eyes.

“H-h-how!”

“Don’t worry about my little trick. Tell me about the boat.”

The man started shaking, and she couldn’t help a small laugh. It was an easy spell, to teleport something out of someone’s hand, into hers. At least it was easy now. Before it would have taken a lot of focus out of her, to pull it off  _and_ an invisibility spell at the same time, but the rules had changed now, and she wasn’t about to ignore it. Being the Guardian was a lot of responsibility, but it could also make her life a lot more easier, thanks in part to tricks like that, and Lidya intended to make the best of it.

“The boat,” she repeated, pressing the blade a little more, “Come on.”

“Harlan gave it to me! He—he took it from Captain Joy!”

“Where’s this Captain Joy?” she asked, because she already knew that name. This was him and his crew who had gotten the Howlis brothers into a trap that had put them in jail.

“Joy’s dead. Harlan killed him after the whole thing with the Howlis, and he gave me the crew.”

Lidya frowned, because she had seen that man’s crew, and they didn’t look like guys who could get one over the worgens.

“Your crew is responsible for the Howlis’ arrest?”

“Uh, well...” He was sweating a lot, and was going cross-eyed at the blade, but he also wasn’t moving much so Lidya couldn’t complain. All the other interrogation so far had been a lot more violent – her back still hurt from the Vulperan she had questioned the night before.

“Talk faster.”

“Most of the guys who were with Joy at the time... well, they aren’t here anymore.”

“Dead?”

“Mostly. Some are in Tol Dagor,” -- which meant they were probably dead now too if the rumors going through Freehold were true, thanks to the Alliance party – “and the others were cast away, or joined Harlan’s inner circle.”

“So Harlan used other captains to take out his strongest rivals, and then took them out too, and no one sees a problem in that?”

“Hm... well... uh...”

Lidya rolled her eyes.

“Here’s the thing,” she said, trying her best to frown the same way Ilana had when she had bossed everyone around – and it seemed to work because the pirate started sweating even more – “tonight I’ll go to your ship, with two of my friends, and you’ll pledge your loyalty to them. They’ll be your new captains, and you’ll make sure your entire crew follows your lead, or else...”

He nodded nervously.

“Sure, sure! I will, they will! Please just,” he looked around, at everyone walking up and down the street and not paying them any attention, “please, stop this.”

“Of course,” smiled Lidya, stepping away, the dagger disappearing from her hand as she dismissed the invisibility spell.

It seemed to spook the pirate even more, and he promised to do whatever she wanted, before literally running away.

Lidya couldn’t lie, it did feel good and badass to be a pirate.

  
  


  
  


***

  
  


  
  


The crew didn’t follow their leader, but Bobby only had to decapitate the First Mate with one hand and without even looking before they were all changing their mind, and while it made Lidya want to throw up, she also couldn’t pretend she hadn’t been expecting it. And so just like that, the brothers had their boat, The Clawed Widow, and a crew again. They immediately set sail, to Tanaris of all places because this was where Ravandwyr was waiting for them, and upon arriving they found more fights and azerite than they could have imagined.

It was a long week, and once Lidya had sat down with the brothers and Ravandwyr in the Captain’s cabin to finally tell them that she didn’t care about pirating, she was on a mission to save the world from basically imploding they took it way better than she had imagined they would.

“Saving the world involves murder and riches so we’re in,” had said Jes, and Bobby had simply nodded next to him, so Lidya had taken it for what it was – a pledge of loyalty.

She had told them that she would meet them back on the boat a few days later, and had teleported away to the Chamber of the Guardian with Ravandwyr.

“Well,” greeted Karlain the second she arrived.

He was standing next to the big golem with his arms crossed and his brows furrowed, and Lidya immediately widened her stance, not knowing what to expect from him.

“This is a nice surprise.”

“This was a last resort choice.”

“We’ve all had hard choices to make, recently,” he said, and she gritted her teeth.

“Why are you here? What do you want?”

“I want to help,” he replied, uncrossing his arms and taking a step closer to her. “This can’t go on. I voted against this war, because I _knew_ that what is currently happening would happen” – and that surprised her more than anything he could have said, because if Karlain had voted against it then it meant that Kalec had voted in favor of it and she couldn’t imagine why he would.

Having Karlain on her side was good news though.

“Anyone willing to fight the real fight is welcomed,” she said, taking a step closer too and relaxing slightly, “and I’m happy you’re on our side.”

He gave her a curt nod, before looking down at the floor, suddenly tensed.

“Jaina has been arrested by her mother, I don’t know if you are aware of this.”

“I might have heard some stories,” she replied.

“It's only a question of time before she is found and freed by the Alliance. She’ll be a formidable enemy.”

“We’ll see about being her enemy.” She didn’t worry about Jaina, even though she should have. She was powerful and determined to put an end to the Horde once and for all, but to her Genn and Anduin were a bigger threat.

Anduin, especially.

The peace seeking priest of the Light was now leading a bloody war against the Horde, and she couldn’t understand how things had changed so fast. She knew what needed to be done about it, but she wasn’t sure she was ready for it yet – wasn't sure she would  _ever_ be.

She’d have to worry about it later though.

“I’ve managed to acquire a boat and a crew,” she said, turning to look at Vargoth too, who had approached. “We can’t stay in Kul Tiras, can’t focus our effort only on the Alliance.”

“Going to Zul Dazar is madness,” warned Karlain, but Lidya simply shrugged a shoulder and smirked.

“Good thing I have mad pirates going with me then. We just need to plan where, and how we’ll attack.”

Ravandwyr sighed, suddenly looking as old as he was, and very tired, and it amused Lidya. He was acting like her older brother, and it would never cease to amuse her.

She was glad she still had him on her side.

“Come on, don’t be like this. We’ll meet in my office in twenty minutes, okay? Has anyone tried to get in while I was away?”

“Seventeen spies, but all were stopped by the wards,” replied Vargoth.

“Good,” she replied, although the number wasn’t good _at all_. It was five more than before. Either the SI:7 was growing desperate, or they thought that throwing bodies at the wards would at some point neutralize them – but she knew Mathias was smarter than that second option.

If he was growing desperate, then it meant that the situation was really bad, and she could only guess what it meant for her.

“Let’s get you something to eat,” mumbled Ravandwyr, because her face was probably showing all that she was thinking, already grabbing her by the shoulders and pushing her away.

  
  


  
  


***

  
  


  
  


Lidya wished it wasn’t true, but it took her a whole other week to gather the courage to finally do what she really needed to do since the beginning – and what she wished had been done on that fateful day Teldrassil had burned.

It was a little tricky, and way too risky for her to tell anyone in the Tirisgarde that she was doing it, but she managed to bypass all the wards put around the Keep in Stormwind and teleport in without triggering anything.

A lot of these wards had been put there by her anyway, but still.

She arrived in Varian’s office, and for a second she couldn’t breathe through the feeling of pure and absolute pain in her chest – it felt like being stabbed in the heart and bleeding out on the carpet all alone, and she sat down at the leather chair so she didn’t fall on her knees.

The parchments on the desk were old – dated to her stay in Suramar – but nothing had been moved, it was like Varian had left everything like this only an hour before, and that he would be back any minute to go back to work.

Lidya closed her eyes, reaching out for that little bond hiding deep inside of her, the one that had been formed by the Light the day of their wedding, like she did every single day, but as always she came up empty. Varian was alive, the bond was still here, but it told her nothing about where he was, what he was doing or in what shape he was.

He wasn’t on Azeroth anymore – it was the only conclusion she could come up with that made sense, but she had no idea where he could be. She had people on Draenor keeping an eye out for her, and she knew for a fact there was no way to get to Argus anymore since the Vindicaar had been parked outside of the Exodar before this whole mess had even started. Outland might have been a possibility, but it was a little ridiculous and she didn’t see what he could be doing there.

The only people who could come and go as they pleased through planets were the Illidari, who had the actual key to it, but Lidya knew for a fact that if the Illidari ever came back on Azeroth then Ilana would get to her.

There was only one other explanation, but she refused to think about it because if it was true – and she feared, deep down, that it was – then she’d have to go and fight dragons, and she had other things to worry about for now.

She opened her eyes again, and looked at the couch where they had kissed that night after the ball, when everything had started.

She missed him.

Not for the first time since the war had started, since she had become the Guardian, since a considerable amount of her allies had become enemies, she wished that he was here, just so he could hold her while she vented her frustration, fears and doubts away. He usually would play with her hair, and let her play with his, and would kiss her when her voice would break or wobble too much, and she closed her eyes against the memories, eyes suddenly stinging.

_Light_ , she didn’t deserve to have him taken away from her, especially now of all times.

She deserved to have more time with him, to do more, to enjoy her life with him more. They hadn’t known calm together, hadn’t known what a normal life was like.

They hadn’t even had an official wedding celebration in Stormwind.

_They had barely even talked about their future together._

She  _needed_ to find him. Needed to bring him back here, in Stormwind, where he belonged, with his son and her. She knew for a fact that none of the bullshit currently happening would be happening if he had been there.

The world needed him. The Alliance needed him. His family needed him.

She exhaled softly at this thought, because he was the last family she was in contact with. She hadn’t seen her parents or siblings since Léria’s funeral, and couldn’t possibly get to them now that the SI:7 was looking for her – and even if it was an option, she would rather not.

There were a lot of things her family didn’t like about her lifestyle, and becoming the Guardian was the last nail in the coffin.

She had a husband though, the only family she could really choose, and she had promised herself that she would stop at nothing to save him – and it was truer now than ever.

Repeating this to herself, she got up from the chair, wiped at her eyes, and looked around. The room had probably already been searched, so even if there had been a clue there it was now gone. It felt good to be in Varian’s space though, so she stayed just for a moment more, before shimmering away, to the room on the other side of the hallway.

This one was very different. A little more organized, and a little less leathery. The couch was smaller but covered in soft pillows, and the books lining the walls were less about warfare and more about diplomacy or straight up trashy novels.

At the desk – that was made of the same wood as Varian’s – was the King, who didn’t look surprised at all to see Lidya. He closed the book he was reading, and sighed as she went to sit in front of him in the comfortable dark blue chair.

“I was wondering when you’d come.”

“What the fuck happened Anduin?” she asked, because she hadn’t come to play games.

He looked tired, and sad, and skinnier than the last time she had seen him. The war was taking its toll on him, but that was true to everyone so it didn’t really move her. She respected and loved him, had even considered him like a friend, at some point, but what had happened those past few weeks had left her bitter and angry.

“Tell me. I deserve to know.”

He blinked, frowning hard and pursing his lips, like he was trying to stop himself from exploding in her face – she knew he had gotten some of Varian’s temper, knew that he was a Wrynn through and through, despite what people believed about him, and she wished he would let it all out. It would be easier to deal with screams.

“Why were you in Suramar?” he asked instead of telling her what she wanted to know.

“It was personal business. I was looking for a counterspell.”

“Did you have any idea about what was happening?”

It hurt, that he would even ask.

“Of course no.”

Anduin sighed and sat back in the chair, suddenly looking small and like the teenager that he was.

He had Varian’s nose, and eyes, and they were frowning the same way, and just watching him looking exhausted and unhappy was stirring feelings in Lidya that she would prefer to keep buried for now.

“Just talk to me,” she said, deciding to let her walls down too and let him see in her eyes how the situation was killing her. “I came back to Dalaran and just had time to get to Darnassus to help with the evacuation. Next thing I knew, I was getting arrested.”

“The Horde started mining Azerite for weapons and before we even realized what was happening, they had invaded Darkshore.”

Lidya nodded, feeling a lump blocking off her throat.

“Father went there to stop them, it was supposed to be an easy mission, but he never arrived. We have no idea what happened to him.”

“Did he get portalled there?”

Anduin nodded. “Two mages did it, and they didn’t make a mistake, we checked.”

“And what would make you think that I would be responsible for that?”

“I never did, but you were missing too, and by the time Mathias managed to track you down, we were already losing in Darkshore and it turned out that you were in a Horde city. We didn’t know what to do.”

“I’m married to him. You’re one of the only people on this world that know that. How could you even think that I–” she stopped herself before her voice broke, but the tears were burning in her eyes, and Anduin teared up too when he met her eyes.

“I’m so sorry Lidya,” he whispered. “I... I just don’t know what to do, and I know that no matter what happens, I can’t count on you in this war.”

“No you can’t,” she replied, the chill of her magic suddenly filling her chest and making her calm again, the tears gone. “I will never condone this war, not when I spent so long fighting alongside the Horde to save everyone from the Legion. Not when the actions of so few are killing so many. Not when our planet is literally dying, and you are all fighting over its life essence.”

Anduin’s eyes turned hard, but he didn’t say a word.

“My husband, your father, the one man who could have stopped all of this from happening, is missing, and instead of working with me to find him you threw me at Mathias and his spies. I won’t forget this, and I won’t forget that Genn was a part of this either. You are better than this Anduin, and Genn should know better. I’m here to tell you that I will find Varian, no matter what, but do not get in my way.”

A muscle jumped in the king’s jaw.

“Lidya,” he started, but she cut him.

“It will be Archmage for you from now on.”

This time he looked hurt, and she couldn’t help but feel oddly satisfied at it.

“Lidya,” he repeated, “I agree that the arrest was too much but there has been nothing since then and I–”

“What?” she cut him again.

He just looked confused.

“Spies have been tailing me since I left Stormwind,” she said. “And not _all_ of them are Horde.”

“They’re not mine, I’ve specifically told Shaw not to go after you and he’d have to answer to me if he did.”

They both frowned.

“Who else?” he asked.

“Why?” she said at the same time.

She thought about telling him then that she was now the Guardian of Azeroth, but then dismissed the idea. There were some secrets worth keeping to herself, at least for the time being, and she already had enough on her plate now that it seemed like a third party was getting involved.

“Look,” she said, getting up, and he immediately jumped to his feet too.

“Don’t go yet! We... Look, what happened was horrible, okay? And I’m so sorry for the way you were treated, and you’re right we need to work together to find my father!”

“I need to get out of here and back in the field, to find out what exactly is happening,” she replied.

He quickly joined her and grabbed her arm before she could move or say more, and as he looked down into her eyes, she felt that sharp stabbing pain in her heart again.

“Lidya, I’m so sorry. I know what he means to you, I was there when the Light united you through me, and I know you’re the only one who understands how I’m feeling right now.”

She swallowed the tears trying to crawl up her throat again, and nodded.

“Please, come back here. Come and see me, to talk. Anytime you want. Just, please, come.”

She nodded, because there really wasn’t anything she could say to that, and took a step back so he would let go of her arm and she could teleport as far away from there as she could.

They both knew she wouldn’t go back if she could help it.

She arrived abroad the Clawing Widow just in time to stop a vulperan from trying to get abroad from another ship, and as she threw a frozen orb at the other pirates trying to get on, she turned and met a grinning Jes, who was swiping at three attackers with a sword she had never seen before.

“Ah, Lidya!” he yelled over the sound of fighting, “just in time I see!”

“What the fuck!” she replied, putting her ice barrier up and starting to cast a frostbolt.

“Welcome to piracy! If you survive, you’ll be one of us for real!”

“There’s no way I’m dying to _this_!” she replied, unable to stop a grin from growing on her face as someone shot an azerite bullet at her barrier and, just for a moment, all of her problems flew out of her brain.

**Author's Note:**

> now for a special trick: watch me finally do the quests on Horde side to know wtf I'm writing about
> 
> The comments on the last story were amazing guys by the way < 3


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